[ http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Naked_Lunch&action=edit&section=2 - edit ] Plot summary

Naked Lunch consists of many loosely related vignettes in which several characters such as the sadistic, sociopathic and borderline incompetent http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benway - Dr. Benway reappear. The primary character (one might say the main character) is agent Bill Lee (a pseudonym for Burroughs — Lee was his mother's maiden name; Burroughs also appears in Kerouac's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Road - On the Road as "Old Bull Lee" and used the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudonym - pseudonym William Lee for his first novel, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkie_%28novel%29 - Junkie , and for his second novel, Queer).

The book's structure anticipates the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cut-up_technique - cut-up technique Burroughs would later employ in novels such as the so-called " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nova_Trilogy - Nova Trilogy " ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Soft_Machine - The Soft Machine , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ticket_That_Exploded - The Ticket That Exploded , and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_Express - Nova Express ). The stories draw from his experiences in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tangiers - Tangiers and his life in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States - America and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico - Mexico , as well as a tour through http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_America - South America he undertook after accidentally shooting his http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common-law_wife - common-law wife http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Vollmer - Joan Vollmer in the head while supposedly playing a drunken game of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Tell - William Tell . Throughout this period he became addicted to several drugs (notably http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroin - heroin and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphine - morphine ). The novel's mix of taboo fantasies, peculiar creatures (like the predatory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mugwump_%28disambiguation%29 - Mugwumps ), and eccentric personalities all serve to unmask mechanisms and processes of control. Burroughs explains the title as “a frozen moment when everyone sees what is at the end of the fork.” The title was suggested by Burroughs's friend http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Kerouac - Jack Kerouac . The novel is a particularly grand illustration of Burroughs's skill with dialogue. Poet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Ginsberg - Allen Ginsberg , Burroughs' close friend and sometime lover, refers to Naked Lunch in his introduction to his epic poem " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howl - Howl ".

The book contains what is generally considered to be some of Burroughs' most memorable and quoted passages. One of the most quoted is a section (or, to use Burroughs' terminology, a "routine") known as "The Talking Asshole". This story-within-a-story involves a man who teaches his anal orifice to talk, a trick he soon regrets when it develops a personality and mind of its own and eventually takes over the man's body. The man is eventually incapable of doing anything other than consuming and excreting, becoming an "all-purpose blob." The anecdote serves as a symbol of material consumerism, which, like a man teaching his asshole to talk started with good intentions but ultimately ended in lobotomizing the population. The man is eventually stripped of his free-will, doubt, and reasoning, and can only serve as a more efficient consumer. The man is to represent society, who's been offered hopeful capitalism at the expense of being brainwashed by the media in order to forward the capital. Notable recordings and performances of this routine include http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Zappa - Frank Zappa reading it during 1978's http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Nova_Convention&action=edit - The Nova Convention (it was recorded and released by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giorno_Poetry_Systems - Giorno Poetry Systems ), by Burroughs himself in his mid-1990s CD http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Spare_Ass_Annie_and_Other_Tales&action=edit - Spare Ass Annie and Other Tales , and it is quoted virtually verbatim by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Weller - Peter Weller 's character in the film version of Naked Lunch.

Several characters would reappear in many later works, most notably the surgeon Dr. Benway, Clem Snide "the Private Asshole", and Inspector Lee. In 1989, Burroughs published http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interzone_%28book%29 - Interzone , a collection of short stories and other writings including a chapter entitled "WORD" that at one time was considered for inclusion in Naked Lunch. According to some sources, Burroughs original title for the novel Naked Lunch was also Interzone.

[ http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Naked_Lunch&action=edit&section=3 - edit ] Interpretation

The redeeming literary merit of the work is found in the biting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satire - satire and social criticism many of these episodes contain. Burroughs digests the modern American mind and spits out a wild, almost repulsive parade of images and characters that encapsulate the current state of the 20th century. From the seedy abortionist who solicits pregnant women on the street, to the racist County Clerk who represents rural intolerance, to the macho father who buys a prostitute for his fifteen year old son on his birthday, only to discover the kid literally got a "piece of ass", Naked Lunch exposes the under workings of the American experience, and shows the beginnings of a social pathology and hypocrisy that would erupt in the 1960s as a 'culture war'. Burroughs himself found the material disturbing to write, but also a cleansing of his life-long frustrations and unconsciously repressed experiences.

On a more specific level, Naked Lunch protests the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_penalty - death penalty . In Burroughs' Deposition: A Testiomony Concerning A Sickness, perhaps the most shocking and pornographic section of the book, "the Blue Movies" (appearing in the vignette A.J.'s Annual Party) is deemed "a tract against capital punishment." Within "the Blue Movies," three overtly sexual adolescents take part in hanging one another, wherein Burroughs lewdly mocks by incorporating http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-erotic_asphyxiation - auto-erotic asphyxiation .

Using believable metaphors representing addiction (most notably http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroin - heroin , along with medical practice [Benway resorting to subway abortions after having his license revoked] and even homosexuality), Burroughs repudiates America's consumerist post-World War II state, and the overall human addiction to control. Unfortunately because of its absurdity and strong drug content, many readers misinterperet Naked Lunch as merely a drug novel written by a delusional addict.